PoBiz Stock Index Update, 21 April 2016

PoTemp Solutions stock soared on news that Eleaonore Mylestone, justly beloved poet, will reveal today at the Harriet blog exactly how much she is getting paid by the PoFo, Inc. for her guest post. Explaining that the PoFo, Inc. contract contains a clause that the post must not be fewer than 1500 words, Mylestone barely makes the word-count threshold with some suggestive innuendo in the middle about an “erotic” summer stage-hug with Paul Doubloon, Poetry Editor of the New Yorker, at a Fire Island reading. “You don’t wear as many clothes in summer,” stated Mylestone, matter of factly, “so there was some real body contact, and I am here to say that after about thirty seconds of it, we looked deeply into each other’s eyes, and that was that.”

Mylestone goes on to explain that this summer-fling moment opened the gates to her getting a poem published in the New Yorker after over 900 tries, covering the course of forty years. “So you see,” said Mylestone, “never underestimate the power of the erotic in matters of poetry and money—and trust me, the New Yorker has the latter.”

Stock prices for Gino’s Deli, across the street from the New Yorker offices, are up on news that business there has increased 1500% today, with poets flocking to its tables, hoping to get a full-body and groin-press hug with Paul Doubloon, who is reputed to go there three times a day for the liverwurst and onion sandwich.

Stephanie Younger, a National Poetry Month blogger for Harriet, introduced Mylestone by alluding to Joseph Kablam’s “Kill List,” a poem that is somewhat about money, and which caused great consternation five years ago for its onomastic, chant-like qualities. “Just because you get paid some money by PoFo, Inc.,” proffered Younger, “doesn’t mean you are a “rich poet,” or even a “comfortable poet!” When asked by a reporter if she understood that the problem is not taking money or how much money one is taking, so much as whoyou are taking it from, Younger, raising her fingers toward her ears, said, “I have absolutely no idea what you mean, LALALALALALA, plus I can’t hear you.”

Our intrepid reporter, undeterred by Younger’s inexplicable behavior, then asked, “Well, what I mean is – could you please remove your fingers from your ears – why are you taking money from an organization with direct personnel ties to big business, finance, and State Security Agencies, not to mention to the Chicago Police Department, which PoFo, Inc. has called upon to arrest peacefully protesting poets at their bank-like building, with the obvious aim of sending them to jail, which they succeeded in doing with one young woman poet-activist, who was protesting rich people with some peaceful “eroticism” at a hoity-toity wine and cheese reception on the PF’s $150,000 parquet teak floor, and who was dragged off, violently, and thrown in the Cook County slammer, where she was subjected to vicious sexual harassment, and where, the following day, at her hearing, with no lawyer there to defend her, PoFo, Inc. sent two representatives to argue that she be sent back for a longer stint to teach her a lesson, and to this day the Poetry Foundation has not apologized for this obscene act of violence against the poetry community, and yet you take their money in return for giving them “progressive cover,” without saying a word about the shameful nature of what they did, because they wouldn’t pay you if you did speak up, that’s what I mean.”

“Come on, Stephanie, let’s go,” shouted Paul Doubloon, behind the crush of reporters and photographers, “you don’t have to listen to this crap.” And away they walked, looking into each other’s eyes, hand in hand.